Awake My Soul
by Aryana NightAngel
Summary: After accepting Dumbledore's offer for protection, a broken down Draco Malfoy is sent to live at the Burrow. And if nothing is what he expected it to be, that may just be alright in the case of the Boy Who Lived.


_Summary: After accepting Dumbledore's offer for protection, a broken down Draco Malfoy is sent to live at the Burrow. And if nothing is what he expected it to be, that may just be alright in the case of the Boy Who Lived._

**(AN: okay, this is a little Drarry thing that I did just for fun. It was inspired by the song ****Awake My Soul**** by Mumford and Sons, and originally when I was writing it in my brain, there were lyrics in text all through the story, and it was much longer and based very closely on the song. Once you've read it, you'll realize that it didn't really turn out the way I originally planned. Oh well. Hope you like it anyway!)**

**(PS: the story is from the first person point of view of Draco Malfoy!)**

_How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes_

_I struggle to find any truth in your lies_

_And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know_

_My weakness I feel I must finally show_

_Lend my your hand and we'll conquer them all_

_But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall_

_Lend me your eyes I can change what you see_

_But your soul you must keep totally free_

_Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah_

_Awake my soul_

_Awake my soul_

_How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes_

_I struggle to find any truth in your lies_

_And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know_

_My weakness I feel I must finally show_

_Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah_

_In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die_

_Where invest your love, you invest your life_

_In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die_

_And where invest your love, you invest your life_

_Awake my soul_

_Awake my soul_

_Awake my soul_

_For you were made to meet your maker_

_Awake my soul_

_Awake my soul_

_Awake my soul_

_For you were made to meet your maker_

_You were made to meet your maker_

**Awake My Soul**

I caught sight of the house at once and instantly began to stare, and I couldn't seem to stop. It looked as though it had once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked it looked as though it were held up by magic, which it probably _was_. Five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read, "THE BuRRow" in sloppy black letters. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around the yard.

It was the most bizarre piece of architecture that I'd ever seen in my life, so much so that I couldn't even manage an ounce of distain for the place. Once I tore my eyes away, I looked around myself at those accompanying me. The Weasel was scowling at the dirt, but then it really wouldn't be practical for me to go on thinking of him specifically as 'the Weasel' when there was a whole herd of them living here. Ronald it would have to be, then, since I refused to think of him as Ron, as if we were friends. His father was even less happy about this arrangement than Ronald himself, but was trying to smile about it for some idiotic reason that I didn't bother to try understanding.

But on my other side, with a relaxed posture that made his companions' stiffness even more apparent, Potter was doing his best to hide a genuine smile. Probably at my reaction to the house, if I had to guess. Bastard. "This is the Burrow," he said, and even his voice was calm and easy. I wondered vaguely what the hell was wrong with him. "Don't worry about it too much; you'll only be here until Dumbledore and Snape work out how to extract your mother from Malfoy Mansion, then both of you will be sent into hiding far, far away from Bloody Chosen Ones and Blood Traitor Weaselys," he explained cheerfully as we walked up the path to the house. I thought that I'd probably called them those things in the great fit I'd thrown before my voice had simply left me and I found I had nothing more to say.

"For Merlin's sake, Harry, stop talking to him," Ronald whispered in a way that made me wonder if he had actually intended his instruction of his friend to be out of my earshot. Probably not. He was very overt about hating my guts. I couldn't be troubled to waste my energy on hating much of anyone anymore. I was so fucking _tired_ of it.

"Well no one else has bothered to tell him what's going on. If he isn't completely catatonic, like you seem to be under the impression that he is, then perhaps he'd like to know," Potter replied lightly, and when Ronald attempted to argue, he was quickly told to shut up. As I followed Potter towards my new personal hell, I realized that he'd just _defended _me. How _strange_.

I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom, which was actually a closet that a mattress had been stuffed haphazardly into the bottom of. The pathetic set of clothes that I'd been supplied with were rumpled up in a bag that rested above my pillow, which was only slightly less lumpy and uncomfortable than the mattress itself. I didn't know how long I'd slept, but judging by the absolutely putrid bitterness of the Sleeping Draught that Potter had given me, it had been a rather strong one. I probably should have taken just half of it as he'd instructed, instead of ignoring him and downing the entire thing. Merlin only knew where the boy had gotten it in the first place.

So, I was awake, but had no desire to be. I just wanted to go to sleep and stay that way. I didn't hear anyone moving about in the hallway outside the closet, so I cracked the door for some light and changed into a pair of blue jeans and a long sleeved gray t-shirt that were probably the cheapest things I'd ever worn in my entire life. The pants were too large for me, and had to be held up by a belt.

I carefully opened the closet door and peered outside; judging by the light, it was sometime in the early afternoon. Seeing no one around, I stood up and had to shove one of the many winter coats in the closet off of myself when it fell on me. I walked down the short hall to the bathroom that Potter had told me I would share with him, Ronald the Weasel, some people named Bill and Fleur, Ginevra the Weaselette, and Hermione Granger the Mudblood whenever she showed up. Fortunately, no one was occupying the restroom at just that moment. I showered mechanically and put my clothes back on, then stopped to look at myself in the mirror.

My face was all angles; I was too thin. I had purple circles under my eyes that were nearly as dark as bruises, and that my long sleep had done nothing to remedy. My hair fell shambolically around my face, but I didn't have the energy to try to convince it to lay flat on my head. Not without a Grooming Charm, and I wouldn't turn seventeen for another week. I was certain that this place would be far behind me by then, nothing more than a piece of the bad memory that this whole year would be someday.

Deciding that there was nothing I could do for my horrid appearance, I left the bathroom and descended the rickety staircase as quietly as I could manage. In the kitchen, the mother Weasely was doing something that looked like cooking from the doorway. She didn't acknowledge me, and I returned the favor.

I stopped at the large family clock that stood in the front room, wondering what my hand on the clock in my home was pointing to. Was there a slot for _In Exile_? My father might install one especially for me. The Molly, Ronald, Bill, and Ginevra hands on this clock were pointed towards _Home_; Fredrick, George, Percival, and Arthur were pointed at _Work_. Charles was over on the slot for _Traveling_. Apparently, the Weaselys were an even bigger litter of freckle-spattered redheads than I'd originally thought.

I didn't know where the rest of the pack was, and hoped I would be able to avoid them. I stepped outside, finding the sun warm and the breeze pleasant. It was a nice day, something that I'd grown to appreciate in my time shut up inside Malfoy Manor for rigorous 'Pureblood Studies' for the entirety of the previous summer. My gaze drifted immediately towards the wooded area that was just a short walk from the house. In the other direction was a rather monotonous expanse of hills that didn't interest me in the slightest, but my acute fear of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts notwithstanding, I'd always loved forests.

I started the walk to the tree line, but a hand grabbed my shoulder and wheeled me forcefully around. I would have fallen if another pair of hands hadn't caught me by my elbow and opposite shoulder and held me upright. For a second I was certain that I was about to be restrained and have the shit beaten out of me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn't the case. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Harry's voice asked sharply from behind me as he let go of my arm and stepped up beside me. Across from him, Ronald Weasely, his best mate, stood looking confused. Well, more confused than he usually looked.

"I wanted to know where he thought he was going," Ronald snapped, regaining the anger that had apparently been momentarily stolen from him. I blinked slowly at him and remained silent. Ronald's face started to turn red. "Are you going to answer?" he demanded angrily.

"No, he isn't," Harry answered for me. "If I'm right, he really isn't capable at the moment." He turned to face me, green eyes curious and open. I frowned at him; of course I was capable. Just because I hadn't spoken to any of them did not mean I was suddenly mute or anything. I opened my mouth to tell him just that, but no words came out. Not a sound. I clicked my teeth together when I quickly closed my mouth, and then opened it again in, this time to shout at both of them. But I just…_couldn't_. And I wanted to accuse someone of putting a spell on me, but I knew they hadn't. This was just me.

"What's wrong with him?" Ronald asked suspiciously, glaring at me. I glared back, my jaw clenched shut.

"Don't know," Harry shrugged. "I suppose he'll work that out for himself soon enough, though. Now why don't we let him take his walk, and we can go get that Bludger out of the garden before it flies down a gnome burrow and we can't get it back," he said, leading his friend around the side of the house.

I stood staring after them, wondering how in the hell things had turned out this way. Harry Potter was now not only defending me from his best mate, not that I couldn't handle it myself, but also reading my mind. I didn't know what to think of it, so I decided to take his advice and just take my damn walk, although I really wanted to know how in the bloody hell he'd known about it in the first place. Damn.

I climbed quietly up the steps, which was no easy feat considering that almost all of them creaked and squeaked and made all kinds of awful noise when one attempted to tread upon them. It was sometime close to one in the morning, and thankfully no one else in the house was awake, so I could crawl undisturbed into my closet.

Sleep came easily to me, but did little good. Nightmares haunted my sleep, and when I woke up tired I wished passionately that bad dreams were something that I could just get used to after having them for so long. But since I knew that wasn't possible, and because I knew I would not be able to sleep any longer if I tried, I climbed out into the sunlit hallway. Like yesterday, everyone else had already risen and left this part of the house.

I took a quick shower and dressed, wondering what I should do with my dirty clothes for a moment before deciding not to care and throwing them back onto my bed. This time when I left the house and walked into the woods, no one spoke to me. I wandered for a while, like I had all of yesterday, but today I went in a different direction on a rough deer trail.

It took me about an hour to reach a placid pond surrounded by flat banks and several large shade trees. I stood and stared, awed by it for a long moment. Then I walked over and settled under a shade tree and contented myself to spending the rest of the day intermittently watching the lightly rippling water and drifting clouds.

This time when I returned to the house, everything was dark, like it had been last night. But when I crossed the small living room to go up the stairs, a light flashed on behind me. I wheeled around to find Harry Potter sitting on the couch, one hand on the small lamp that he had just lit with twist of a switch. He appeared to have been sleeping, if I was to judge by his disheveled hair and rumpled clothes.

"Have you eaten anything since you got here?" he asked calmly, standing up. I stared at him, knowing that I hadn't. My stomach hurt a bit, but I was used to that pain. As I'd drawn closer and closer to my deadline to kill Dumbledore, I'd eaten little if anything for days on end. "Come on," he ordered, moving into the kitchen, even thought I hadn't even shaken my head in answer to his question.

I thought about just going to bed, but I _was _a little hungry, so I followed him. He carried the small lamp with him and sat it on the kitchen table, and I thought vaguely of how much I hated the statute for underage magic. "I think there's some soup left from dinner," he said, looking into an icebox while I sat down at the table. "Okay, never mind. But we do have chicken. Do you want a sandwich?" he asked as he produced a small covered plate of what I assumed was chicken, then opened a breadbox and pulled out half of a loaf.

"You're actually a little thinner than I am now," Harry said with a small smile as he grabbed a jar of mayonnaise out of the cupboard and a knife out of a drawer. I looked down at myself and frowned; I wouldn't look so thin if my clothes actually fit me. "And it's not the clothes," he added over his shoulder before walking over and sitting down in front of me. I pressed my lips together, but found that I was growing accustom to having my mind read. "It takes a lot of effort to look as peaky as you do," he informed me lightly as he began cutting slices of chicken and then bread. "I should know."

He pushed the sandwich across the table towards me. I ate it slowly, and he went about putting everything back in its proper place in the kitchen. I got up and started to leave the kitchen but turned around in the doorway when he spoke. "Sorry that you've been put in the closet," he said with a little grin that made me realize what a horrible joke the whole thing really was. I was in the closet. Bloody fucking hell. "Don't worry too much about it; I lived in a cupboard under a staircase for the first part of my life," he told me over his shoulder as he started running water over the dirty plate.

I turned and walked up the stairs, trying to figure out if I was angry or not. Surprisingly, I really wasn't, but then I hadn't been feeling much of anything these days. I just felt burnt out, with everything that had mattered once charred down to nothing. The last hope that I held was that my mother would be rescued from Malfoy Manor and we could leave all of this behind us. But part of me didn't even have that, because that part of me had never believed that my mother had lived much longer after the Hogwarts Express had left Kings Cross at the beginning of the school year.

The next day, when I walked down the stairs to find a completely different scene than I had expected. There were people I'd never seen before sitting in the living room along with the Weaselys, some staring blankly into space and others crying. A few glanced up at me when I paused in the doorway, but no one spoke. I turned and went outside through the kitchen door. For a moment I almost turned towards the forest, but my mind hinged on the thought of the face that I hadn't seen inside the house.

I walked in the opposite direction of the trees, toward the garden. Harry was sitting on the fence facing away from the house, staring off into the hills. I walked up behind him and carefully touched his shoulder, not sure what I was doing yet. Harry knew, though. "Dumbledore is dead," he said quietly without looking at me. "Apparently, he was ill for some time and didn't tell anyone. Some kind of curse that started on his hand and had been killing him for a while now," he explained. "Snape is supposed to be here later with your mother, if Dumbledore's plan still happens without him here to make sure it does," he added.

I sighed and leaned on the fence beside him, our arms touching. After a long moment of silence, I turned and walked towards the trees.

It was hours later that Harry's snowy owl landed in front of me on the bank of the lake. The note she held in her beak was a single line: _Snape is here_. I felt my stomach twist at everything that the note didn't say. It didn't say that my mother was with Snape, which couldn't mean anything good.

I returned to the house to find Snape standing outside shooting disgruntled glances at Harry, who was perched on the garden fence a short distance away and paying him no apparent attention. Snape didn't notice me at first, until Harry called over his shoulder, "You're a very observant spy, Snape," and jerked his thumb at me without ever looking at either one of us. I couldn't help but smile at the thoroughly perturbed look on the potion master's face as he turned to face me.

"Draco…" he said, his expression becoming one of regret. "I was too late to save Narcissa." I blinked, trying to take this in. It was one thing to suspect it, but it was quite another to have to fact thrown in your face like a bucket of cold water. My knees shook, and I reached out for something to hold me up since I didn't think my legs would be doing it much longer.

And just like that, Harry was there, looping my arm around his shoulders and holding his own arm tightly around my waist. I stumbled blindly into the seat he led my towards. I bent forwards over my knees, barely breathing as tears dripped from my eyes. The last time I'd seen her before I got on the Hogwarts train, she'd been thin and drawn, but her eyes shone with blue fire. _"When you are faced with the impossible, do not lose hope. Trust your own heart," _she'd said, and I hadn't understood at the time and wasn't sure if I did now.

Dumbledore had lied to me. It was my own fault for letting myself believe him, of course, but the fact remained that he had lied. I tried to hate him, but I quickly discovered that hate directed at a dead man was empty and unsatisfying. So who was left to hate? Myself? I'd already been so full of self-loathing before this had started that a little more wasn't such a big deal. But the person that would be so easy to place wrongful blame on, the person who I really and truly _wanted _to hate, was the person that my old, _old _hatred for had been snuffed out completely for reasons beyond my understanding and control.

"Draco?" A voice reached me from somewhere outside my whirling thoughts. "Draco, are you still with us?" he asked. Slowly, _very _slowly, I returned to myself and sat up, and met a pair of emerald green eyes that were wide with concern. His concern was for _me_, something I vaguely tried to work out the feasibility of as I tilted my head slowly to the side to study him.

He was in dire need of a haircut, but I'd never seen him any other way. His clothes were too big for him, his spectacles round and owlish, and his feet bare like some kind of peasant. He was his own kind of beautiful, I had to admit. "Draco?" he repeated, frowning a bit. I could practically hear him wondering if I'd finally just cracked. Maybe I had, if I was thinking that sort of thing about Harry Potter.

"He probably killed her before Dumbledore ever offered to help us," I said. "She kept trying to save me, and he didn't care for that much." Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "Didn't your mum die to save you? Isn't that why you're alive?" I asked, since I knew it was what he'd been thinking.

"That's right," he said.

"Me too," I murmured, turning away from him and glancing at Snape, who looked utterly bewildered. Whether its source was my collapse, Harry catching me, our civil conversation, or a combination of all three, I wasn't completely sure. "So what happens to me now?" I asked.

"Well, you will have to stay here indefinitely, since there's nowhere else for you to go," Snape said carefully, as if he expected me to throw a temper tantrum. I almost wanted to, just to see if I could even work one up anymore. But I just sighed and looked at my hands.

"The Weaselys won't let him stay here," Harry said lightly. "You may go have your row with them over it, if you wish, but it will do no good."

"We shall see," Snape sneered, stalked into the house.

"I spent a bit of time earlier sitting outside the kitchen window, and happened to hear Mr. and Mrs. Weasely discussing the matter," Harry told me with a grim smile. "They don't want you here, and I really can't imagine that you would want to stay."

"Hardly," I snorted. "Your plan?" I asked, since he seemed to have one.

"Well, I inherited Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place from Sirius," he said. "You could stay there if you wish, and if Severus loses his argument." I nodded and sighed.

"It's going to be boring as hell," I said, and Harry laughed.

"I'll arrange to move you there as soon as Snape is finished losing an argument with Mrs. Weasely, and stay a bit to help you shoo out whatever may have taken up residence there since the last time we cleaned it out," he told me. "And you'll even have a House Elf," he added, which brightened my mood immediately. "I'll even let you have him."

I narrowed my eyes at him, and realized he was trying not to smile. "What's wrong with it?" I asked dryly.

"Oh, he's only a _bit _mad. I really don't think there's anything he would like more than to be turned over to a Malfoy, so maybe he'll be more pleasant toward you than he's been to everyone else," he said, and I sighed. Leave it to Harry to own a defective House Elf.

"Okay, so we got rid of the doxies under the sink, and I have the puffskeins out from between the couch cushions caught in the bread box. Ginny and Hermione will love those," Harry said, looking around the living room speculatively.

"We cleared the Cornish pixies out of the bedroom I'm taking upstairs," I added. "Now all that's left is the wardrobe in there. The one that's making that interesting rattling noise." Harry looked at me from where he was inspecting the breadbox, out of which I could hear a low humming noise.

"Let's take care of that, and then we can find Kreature and get something to eat," he nodded, starting up the stairs. "It's really just good luck that the old Black family barriers and wards that are still all over the place block off the Ministry, so we can use magic here," he noted as we climbed.

"That is definitely a bonus to this place," I agreed when we reached the landing and walked down the hall to my chosen bedroom. "What do you think is in it?" I asked, drawing my wand and facing the rattling wardrobe.

"Not sure," Harry replied with a devilish grin. "Alohamora!" he incanted, and the doors flew open. For an instant nothing happened, the air going still around us and crackling with magic.

And then I was facing Harry, who smiled sinisterly back at me, his eyes bright and looking right through me, seeing all of me and knowing all of my secrets, breathing in and drawing my breath out of me. My heart pounded in my chest, quickened with fear.

"Draco," a voice called from my right, and I looked away from Harry to find…_Harry_. And he was facing someone, and when I turned my attention to them, I saw…

"No. Look at me," the other Harry hissed, grabbing my jaw and forcing me to face him. My pulse rose and my knees trembled. Then he released me roughly and I stumbled backwards a couple of steps. I looked over at Harry to find him looking just as rattled as I felt. And then I watched the other Harry, and another _me_, which I had somehow missed before, grab each other violently and practically slam their faces together in a kiss that made my knees go weak just to watch.

Then I was shoved from my side and tumbled into the floor, and the tangled forms instantly morphed into a huge shadow….a dementor. "_Ridiculus_!" Harry, the real Harry, screamed, and the dementor flew back into the wardrobe and the door slammed shut. Slowly, carefully, Harry lowered himself to sit beside me.

"What the bloody fucking hell was that?" I asked quietly.

"Well…It was a bogart. And er…it must have gotten confused by both of us being here…and just…I don't know," he said in a halting, strange tone. "I don't know why it was that."

"Are you afraid of it?" I asked in the same, quiet tone.

His gaze flicked to me, full of uncertainty. "It had to have been a mutual fear," he murmured, looking at his hands. "Something about it was something we were both afraid of."

"Or afraid of _seeing_?" I suggested. "Are you afraid of this?" I asked, reaching out and cupping his face in both my hands, leaning close to him. "Of me?"

"No," he murmured, his eyelids fluttering. And then he closed the last few inches of space and pressed his lips carefully to mine. It was considerably more gentle than the scene that the bogart had created, but I much preferred it. Harry's hands rested on my shoulders, warming my skin straight through my clothes. I threaded my fingers in his hair, finding it surprisingly silky and free of tangles for its messy appearance. Our mouths slanted together perfectly, tongues pressing together and drawing away, shuddering breaths stolen between kisses.

Then the wardrobe rattled loudly, and both of us jumped at the sound. I looked at Harry, who began to smile. Before I even had time to think, we were both laughing, leaning on each other and gasping for breath. "So what are we doing now?" he asked, smiling warmly at me.

And suddenly, without warning, I found myself seeing Harry. It was a shocking thing to realize that I'd been looking at him for six years now without ever seeing him, without knowing that I couldn't. He was so weighed on, trying to help everyone, fix everything, shoulder the world as his burden…but he did not become bitter or resentful of any of it; he laughed and loved and breathed freely, and Harry Potter looked at me with his heart in his eyes and on his sleeve as if he had no idea he could be hurt.

"Draco?" he said, blushing under my gaze. I smiled and tilted me face to his, kissing him softly.

"I don't know yet," I admitted when I leaned back, answering his earlier question. "But I do hope it involves more of this." His face broke into a grin full of all his happiness and trust and care. I never knew that a smile, an expression, could mean so much. But I could see him now, the way I knew he'd been able to see me for days now, and this was really only the beginning of everything that could mean.

**(AN: Okay, it's obviously not the end of Harry and Draco's story, but this is as far as I'm taking it. Mostly since I really have way too many things in progress right now, unposted(is that a word?), that I should be attending to. So that's the end. Much love to reviewers! :) review!)**

**(PS: depending on the number of positive reviews and any inspiration they may offer, I may continue this anyway. :) I want to write what you want to read! So review and tell me!)(please?)**


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